Sport & Story Daily February 29, 2024

Stay Ahead of the Game

February 29, 2024

Good morning! Stephen Curry is racing the clock to get in on the lucrative sneaker game

Stephen Curry Is Battling the Clock to Win Over Sneaker Fans
As Bloomberg.com reports, “Time is running out for Stephen Curry.

The star Golden State Warriors guard says he hopes to have four or five years left in his National Basketball Association career. But with retirement on the horizon, he’s rushing to capitalize on his athletic triumphs by bringing his brand off the court and on to the streets through his partnership with athletic-wear maker Under Armour Inc.”
^{bloomberg.com}

Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers Cashed in on UFC, Taking it From Outlier to Mainstream. Here’s What They’re Banking on Next.
Per SBJ, “Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta are out to prove the naysayers wrong again, just like they did with the UFC. Sitting in an art-filled corner office 30 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta were attempting to paint their version of a masterpiece…”
^{sportsbusinessjournal.com}

Fanatics Eliminates 100+ Jobs in Apparel Vertical Restructuring
As Sportico’s Eben Novy-Williams reports, “The cuts account for less than 1% of the company’s workforce—Fanatics has more than 22,000 employees. The move comes five months after Fanatics hired Andrew Low Ah Kee to be CEO of the commerce division and on the heels of a number of acquisitions. Low Ah Kee has spent the last few months overhauling the group’s operating model, said the person, who was granted anonymity because the details are private.

The cuts include positions at Fanatics’ facility in Easton, Penn.—the former Majestic factory, which has been making MLB uniforms for the past two decades. The facility has been in the news recently due to uproar over MLB’s newly redesigned Nike uniforms. (This restructuring had nothing to do with the MLB uniforms, the person said.)”
^sportico.com

Your Vision Insights: Top 10 Largest NBA Fan Bases

Vision Insights has compiled the list of the 10 largest NBA fan bases in the U.S.

A lot of these fan bases are what you’d expect with the Lakers, Bulls and Warriors rounding out the top 10…but check out number 10 with the San Antonio Spurs finding their way into the top 3rd of the league in fan base size!

Tennis Players Association Adds Airport Lounge Partnership
“We are always very sensitive and listening to the athletes we represent and working with the unions that we represent,” Winners Alliance president Eric Winston said in an interview. “The PTPA has been very clear and the players have been very clear about the pain points of playing professional tennis, and one of those big ones is travel.”
^sportico.com

ATP, PIF Sign Multiyear Partnership Amid Continued Saudi Push Into Tennis
Saudia Arabia’s PIF and the ATP have agreed to a five-year partnership that includes naming rights for the ATP rankings, marking the “latest move by the kingdom into that sport and others,” according to Howard Fendrich of the AP.
^{sportsbusinessjournal.com}

Peter King Opens Up at the End of His Iconic Career
As Front Office Sports’ Eric Fisher writes, “NFL journalist Peter King announced his retirement earlier this week, bringing to a close an iconic career lasting more than four decades. In addition to becoming a preeminent voice in the NFL, particularly over the last two decades as the league grew into a cultural and business colossus, King has been deeply influential in reshaping how fans and media organizations think about digital-age storytelling. 

King’s columns—first ‘The MMQB’ at Sports Illustrated and more recently NBC Sports’ “Football Morning in America”—helped set the model for insider views, mixing deeply reported news and in-depth analysis with personal narratives and perspectives on numerous other topics including the traveling life of an NFL writer, coffee, and craft beer.” 
^{frontofficesports.com}

Sources: Jets Leaving ESPN N.Y. as Home of Radio Broadcasts
The Jets are “leaving ESPN New York in the wake of the radio station planning to abandon its FM signal” this summer, according to sources cited by Andrew Marchand of THE ATHLETIC. Jets’ games will now broadcast on classic rock station WAXQ-FM beginning this fall.
^{sportsbusinessjournal.com}

OU Softball: Oklahoma Coach Patty Gasso Gets Emotional About Love's Field Opening Weekend
The No. 1-ranked Sooners are 14-0 with nine shutouts but are even more excited about finally getting to move into the best college softball stadium in America on Friday.
^si.com

Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer Went From NAIA to the Big Time. Why Don’t More Lower-Level Coaches?
As The Athletic’s Christopher Kamrani writes, “Before DeBoer thrust himself onto the national stage with the memorable run to the title game with the Huskies and before Leipold and Klieman went on to lead rival programs in Kansas and K-State, the trio cut its teeth in the lower-division levels of college football at places many FBS football fans have never heard of.

Their translation of success from the NCAA Division III and NAIA levels to major college football has led to the question: Why aren’t there more of them?

‘If an administrator has cut their teeth at the upper levels of Division I or whatever, they don’t understand what Division III and NAIA is,’ Leipold said. ‘They view them more like high school coaches, which is really unfortunate.’”
^{theathletic.com}

With CFP Expanding and Bowl Games Possibly Shifting, the Future of Army-Navy is Murky
As Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger writes, “The expanded College Football Playoff puts at risk the Army-Navy game’s future as a standalone event and its relevance in the CFP’s selection of the 12-team field — issues that concern the game’s stakeholders enough for one to have penned a letter to CFP leaders earlier this month.”
^{sports.yahoo.com}

Sources: 14-team College Football Playoff Has 'Momentum'
As ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Heather Dinich report, “As Hancock's one-month deadline of mid-March looms, there's optimism and ‘momentum’ for a 14-team playoff starting in 2026, sources told ESPN. There is an effort to come to an agreement in the coming weeks, sources said, but nothing is certain, and there are potential road blocks and expected push back -- as evidenced by the CFP's own meandering path to a 12-team playoff.”
^espn.com

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